Crowdfunding Cleantech

This paper provides insights on the crowdfunding of new alternative energy technologies by enabling inferences from large pools of small investors. We provide large sample evidence from 81 countries around the world that cleantech crowdfunding is more common in countries with low levels of individualism and more common when oil prices are rising. Cleantech crowdfunding campaigns are more likely to have higher capital goals, more photos, a video pitch, and longer text descriptions of the campaign. Relative to non-cleantech campaigns, the success of cleantech campaigns, in terms of achieving funding goals, is more economically sensitive to the campaign’s goal size, being not-for-profit, and having a video pitch. The evidence is consistent with the view that while alternative energies are viewed as being more risky, and investors face greater information asymmetries relative to other types of investment projects, there are mechanisms for entrepreneurs to mitigate these information problems and be at least as successful in cleantech crowdfunding markets.